Kaleidoscope
by Moonlit Water Sunny River
Summary: It never ends - the knives in the dark, the ghosts in the mirror, the tender wound that opens every time you raise your head too high. A hundred hundred facets later, the light has changed but the shadows are the same. Envy/Ling, written for lingyowch on Tumblr. Rated T for mental illness, past abuse, violence/death and mature subject matter.
**Written for lingyowch on Tumblr! A few notes of business: yes, Ling is a trans girl. Reviews pointing out that I 'have it wrong' or that it's 'not canon' will be summarily ignored. Also, Envy is not completely in character for Brotherhood here; I have trouble writing his BH personality, so here he's a blend of the Brotherhood backstory/personality but with some character traits and behaviour quirks unique to 03.**

 **TW: violence/death/murder, blood, dissociation/PTSD, general mental health issues, abandonment, misgendering**

 _ **KALEIDOSCOPE**_

 _one: make amends with all my shadows_

 _#_

 _burning he was burning burning him inside out make it stop PLEASE -_

Envy's eyes snapped open not to fire and stone, but the open sky of an unfamiliar world. Of course. He was here. He'd fallen asleep. He hadn't meant to do that - he'd managed to avoid it for...

He struggled to remember. He'd dozed off once in the desert, and that one had almost lasted an hour. So three weeks, give or take. Longer than that since a proper rest, yeah, but he could manage. That's what he always did, wasn't it? He coped. It was better than the alternative...

Phantom flames licked up his back, and he shuddered and moved his mind on to better topics, sitting up from his impromptu resting place to judge what time it was. From the roof he'd perched himself on, he could see the clear sky in its entirety, and below it, the Citadel of Xing, sloped red roofs perched elegantly on structures that ranged from chaotically ramshackle to perfectly poised. Even the ramshackle houses, however, were kept in the perfect order. To keep himself awake, Envy had started counting the ins and outs of the various servants, deliverymen and nobles from each court, but found himself quickly both bored and dizzy.

Besides, the one person he _wanted_ to find was proving to be annoyingly elusive.

Envy swung his legs over the edge of the roof, kicking his heels back and forth and listening intently as the house below him began to wake. No mention of him. Yet. Or her? The person whose body Greed had inhabited seemed to be frequently confused for one or the other, but that got into intricacies of human gender that Envy didn't have the time or patience for. Most people referred to Envy as a boy, and he was perfectly content with that. But puzzling discrepancies like in the case of Ling Yao were just important enough to humans to make Envy's quest for them extremely frustrating.

He scanned the ground as people began to move through the courts and pathways, colourful silk robes spinning a slow, kaleidoscopic pattern. How different from Amestris! He'd never found anything beautiful or graceful there, nothing to compare to him or his family. They should have been _thankful,_ to be ruled and consumed by them.

Here, though -

Envy shook his head, trying to clear it of the fog of exhaustion. Greed wouldn't have _come_ here if it were nothing but grace and prettiness. This was all distraction. They were trying to distract him from his ultimate goal. They wanted him to fail.

Well, he'd had his taste of failure. _Never again,_ he swore, and he could still taste ashes in the back of his throat.

#

Her father's face was stone, the wrinkles and lines in his face carved fissures, and he didn't betray a single hint of emotion – approval, disgust, interest – as Ling fell to her knees in front of him, laying her bloody sword on the ground between them with a gentleness that belied the stains on its blade.

"It is done, ageless one." The lie slipped from her lips with all the grace of ceremony.

"All of them?"

She winced and hoped it hadn't shown outwardly. "All eleven."

"There are more than that to contend with," he rasped, eyes hard. "Or have you exhausted yourself already?"

"I can make peace with those younger than me." She thought of Mei, imagined despite herself what she would look like with a knife drawn across her throat – then fled from the thought. Reality was harsh enough. "But the line of succession is clear now. The matter has been settled."

"Settled?" He laughed at that. "It's not settled until I'm in my grave. And better men than you have tried to fix that."

Ling bit her tongue and kept her head bowed. Despite herself, she found herself thinking about a different face. Edward's father. The man who had offered up his life freely to bring his son home. How infuriating.

"Leave me be," the Emperor demanded, flicking his wrist in a clear sign of dismissal. Just in case she didn't listen, or had some craving to stain her blade further, the bodyguard behind him took a menacing step forward.

Ling stood slowly, meeting the Emperor's eyes with a stony gaze before bowing her head again, strands of hair falling in front of her face and hiding the Emperor from sight. _Emperor._ She'd heard his name once, but he'd always been Father or Ageless One or some other saintly epithet meant to disguise the truth of his failing limbs and his cruel, cowardly mind. Slowly, she backed away, the picture of respect with the sword and its blade cradled in her gloved hands. She'd never get the blood out of them, but that seemed perfectly fitting.

Once she made it outside of the throne room, she felt each nerve in her body begin to release, sending tingles up her arms. Almost at the same time, the exhaustion she'd been fighting for hours made itself felt, weighing down every limb until she thought she might fall over. She'd been tired ever since she got home, really. Funny, how a little bit of time in one country made the failings of her own cut that much deeper.

Or maybe it was that she no longer had red elixir flooding her veins with strength and spirit and fire. Wrong, perhaps, to think wistfully about a power that had been taken through death and destruction – but she did anyway. She'd never pretended to be a good person.

She saw the blade again – she'd almost forgotten she was holding it – and made her way to the open garden, digging into her pocket for a piece of cloth. But before she could do anything more than stare at the blood for a little longer, there were hands covering her own, easing both cloth and sword out of her hands. Ran Fan's voice flooded her ears, the warmth of her presence helping bring back feeling into her arms and legs.

"Young lady, will you sit down?" Even though it was a question, it had the force of an order, and Ling laughed gently before easing herself down onto one of the benches, kicking off her shoes and burying her feet in the soft grass. Ran Fan sat down crosslegged next to the bench, resting the blade across her knees in what only looked like a position of ease and comfort.

"I think I will. There's something about interactions with family that make me very tired."

"You speak very freely, considering we are still in the palace," Ran Fan commented dryly, and Ling raised her eyebrows in mock horror.

"Are you talking back to me, Ran Fan?"

"Of course not, young lady." She had her mask on, but Ling could see the slight twinkle in her eyes. She did a very good job of pretending to be serious and determined, but Ling had coaxed her into enough escapades to know better, even if she _had_ had to do quite a lot of coaxing.

"I've just had to kill eleven people all on my own. I'm allowed to be tired."

Ran Fan bent quietly over the sword, running the cloth along the flat steel and moving her hand in slow, rhythmic movements.

"You disapprove."

"Of course n -"

"You know how I feel about you lying to me."

"It is not my job to disapprove." Ran Fan's hands slowed, then returned to their steady pace, black gloves hiding the automail fingers underneath. "If there was a better way, you would take it."

Ling couldn't shake the feeling that Ran Fan was talking about more than just recent events. "Yes." Silence fell between them – comfortable, but not as comfortable as it had been. Ran Fan had never forgiven her for abandoning them, even if she had come back in the end, even if it hadn't been entirely her choice. Ling knew Ran Fan well enough to understand that she would never _say_ it, that she understood how illogical her resentment was; she also knew Ran Fan well enough to know that it would never really disappear.

It took her a moment to realize what was wrong. She'd become so used to the sensation in the time she'd spent as Greed's host that it took her far too long to remember that he was dead, and that meant the swarm of souls she could feel was -

Ran Fan kept cleaning, but Ling could feel her heartbeat resonating in the line between them, only a few beats faster than normal. Just when Ling was starting to wonder if her disturbed sense of reality had spread to the other plane – Ran Fan slowly raised her finger, not quite to her lips but close enough to communicate the general idea.

The screaming mass of souls moved an inch closer. Ran Fan's hand kept moving, cleaning the blood off Ling's sword. As she moved down the blade again, the presence came closer again – and with a flick of her wrist, the blade that had been resting so gently on her kneecaps flew straight and true over Ling's shoulder, towards one of the low roofs around the terrace.

There was a yelp, and before Ling even had time to fight off her exhaustion and move, Ran Fan was leaping from the ground and off the bench, aiming herself like an arrow towards the disturbance. Ling followed her, but hung back a little despite herself, a quiet fear growing in her chest. _What if there's nothing there?_ Or perhaps more terrifying; _what if there is?_

The question didn't have to hang for long; the moment Ling jumped onto the roof, Ran Fan threw something – some _one –_ in her direction. She seized their neck, slamming them down onto the red tiles.

Envy stared up at her, stubborn expression at odds with the fear she could feel spiking in the souls – a bare few, now, which explained why both she and Ran Fan had been so slow to notice him – and before she could recover her senses, he had slipped from her grasp, and a falcon was shooting across the sky, away from them.

She rested her hands on the tile. She could feel herself slipping – slipping – _this is another one of those, isn't it -_

"Young lady?" Ran Fan's voice cut through the building static, but Ling couldn't bear to turn and look at her just yet.

"Young lady, that is one of the homunculi that I fought in Amestris. I would recognize them anywhere."

The static began to subside. Ran Fan had seen him too – that was right. That made sense. At least, as much sense as anything made when ghosts started appearing in your home.

"You need sleep, young lady." Ran Fan's hands moved over Ling's shoulders, guided her upright. "I'll watch over you. I promise." They had never talked about it. Ran Fan just... _knew._

Ling would have fought Ran Fan on it, but she was so tired, _so tired -_ "Okay," she whispered. "Okay."

Her mind wouldn't stop circling and circling – not until, at least, her head hit the pillow and she fell into thankfully dreamless sleep. (But not quite featureless; she could hear a voice, calling her name over and over again; and she could almost hear her own response, wondering why he kept sounding farther and farther away -)

#

Envy didn't come back down for miles, not until the heart buried in his feathered chest had long since calmed down.

 _I'd know him anywhere._ He'd been terrified, but he'd always been a little scared around Greed. And those eyes -

Envy landed at the bottom of a tree, and took his preferred form again, fingers digging into the soft, chalky soil. It hadn't been _quite_ right – he had to admit that much. But hell, Greed had been through so _much_ since Envy had seen him last. It would only make sense, and Greed had always been so annoyingly human that of course he didn't quite _feel_ like a homunculus.

A muffled, quiet voice asked him why he was fixating.

There wasn't an answer, but Envy didn't care. It didn't matter how much justification he had to provide; he _knew,_ more than he'd ever known anything, that the only remaining member of his family (Pride's hollow shell of a self didn't count) was still inhabiting his stolen body.

 _How will you make him break character? He's disguised for a reason._

Envy's fingers closed with a sudden spasm, fingernails scraping on the rocks and shards of pottery buried in the ground, and a few drops of blood soaking into the dark earth before the cuts healed again.

 _Whatever it takes._

Other possibilities reared their heads, and Envy studiously ignored them. It didn't matter whether Greed didn't want him, or if Greed just wasn't -

It didn't matter. Because _Envy's_ only other option was to accept that nobody was looking for him, or thinking about him – that he was, for the first time in his life, utterly alone.


End file.
